PlanetFargo

How to Survive a UFO Attack

Panic and confusion filled the streets after the UFOs appeared. Panic: "Where are the aliens? What if I miss them?" and confusion: "Can someone please tell me where the aliens are? I want to kill them." When the aliens actually started beaming down to fight the heroes, I'm not saying the battle was completely one-sided... but let's just say it made the game Space Invaders look like an ode to peace.

If only they used their psychic death rays for good instead of evil.

Even my character got into the action, stepping in to slaughter a few stragglers like a lion thinning the herd. Assuming that lions are occasionally killed by their prey. The best part was when everyone (at least 50 players) teamed up on a single opponent. When the alien commander appeared, it was like we were gathering around some sort of superpower fondue with sharpened sticks, and him being the cheese. Superpowers exploded in spherical arcs of destruction, like he was a candy-filled pi¿ata exploding at a birthday party for kids who say "OMG" a lot. It was wild.

Alien-kabob!

Even wilder were the parts of the city where the alien invasion didn't work properly. Hey, it's a beta. Sometimes groups of horrific aliens would beam down from above but they would register as friendly NPCs instead of monsters. They'd just sorta hang out. "What's up puny earthlings?" they'd seem to say, while confused heroes milled warily around them. "You can't attack us. We've come to your planet to chill here outside the mini mart. Our race lacks gang-sign technology, otherwise we would flash them. Werd."

I'd like to think that my experience in the closing hours of the City of Heroes beta prepared me for the imminence of an alien invasion. I didn't stick around to see how it all ended, but I suspect someone finished them off using a computer virus uploaded from a Macintosh Powerbook.